Most of us can trace our family history for a few generations - possibly down to our
great-great-grandparents - but certainly not thousands of years into the distant
past, when Europe and other continents were settled by prehistoric tribes and
peoples.

Others of us have little knowledge of even fairly recent
ancestors and suspect that they may hark from an exotic land - but until now
have had no way of knowing for sure.

As we showed in the BBC documentary "Motherland - A Genetic Journey"
and in the recent American PBS film "African American Lives",
modern genetics shows us a way to address these questions. In the genetic material in each of
us, a mass of historic information is encoded, with which experts can for the
first time gain clues to our past ancestors. Over the last ten years,
groundbreaking work by geneticists has shown that mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA -
which is passed from mother to child unaltered for many generations) and Y-chromosomal DNA (Y DNA - passed down from fathers to sons) are very
reliable tools for discovering personal family history. These DNA tests can be useful in tracing African ancestry, British ancestry (English, Scottish or Welsh origins) as well as Viking ancestry or Jewish ancestry.

The Roots for Real DNA tracing service uses a small sample of
your DNA - easily obtained by a simple home saliva test. With it, we match you
to people around the world who share your own very specific genetic line - people
who are in effect distant cousins. The Roots for Real service is based on
up-to-date genetic knowledge and processes, is carried out in highly qualified
laboratories, and uses what is considered to be the largest proofread global geographic database of human
mtDNA.